The main question to ask is what would people really want to steal, if they have everything they need? The assumption in the world of Star Trek is that human society and those who have joined the Federation are mostly harmonious and deviants are extremely rare. Of course this does not consider other aliens, like the Ferengi, who are so driven by greed that their tendency to commit crime is greater. We did witness them abusing transporter technology in The Next Generation.

So basically I think you're asking 21st century questions for a 23rd century technology.

It seems transporting can be stopped trivially easily, and indeed transporting will generally fail unless the circumstances are atypically favorable.

At least when it comes to starship transporters, that is. "Realm of Fear" suggests that transporters are in widespread use elsewhere as well, but there might be a crucial difference there - such as the one between cross-country racing cars and trams today. The "civilian" transporters might be hardwired systems where the phased matter stream never has to endure the hardships a stream sent from a starship across vacuum and atmosphere into a planetary surface has to. Such systems, unlike starship transporters, would be useless for stealing the neighbor's poodle and replacing it with fifty pounds of firecrackers.

Sure, we have seen that with a bit of training, a miscreant can build a transporter of his own, out of a common food replicator ("Visionary"). But the paranoid citizen might purchase all sorts of technologies established on screen, such as transporter jammers (low-level shields or whatnot that will bounce back the mischievous trespasser) or, if he wants to be nasty, scramblers (the kid that tries to beam in will rematerialize as mincemeat).

Who knows, maybe with civilian transporters, they're designed to only transport cargo and people between already established pads and it's only higher grade government and military transporters that can transport to a location without a pad.

Difficult to tell... Sisko in "Explorers" spoke specifically about beaming into his family's living room, but we never learned whether there was a pad there or not.

"For the first few days, I was so homesick I went back to my house in New Orleans every night for dinner. I'd materialize in the living room at six-thirty and take my seat at the table like I'd just come down the stairs... "

Click to expand...

We never actually saw a pad in a civilian home, but perhaps civilian models are made to be nearly invisible?

In Enterprise's "Affiction", set in 2154, we're told that "Very few people have access to that kind of technology." after Phlox is beamed off-planet.

We see cars, busses and trucks, some flying but most not, in London and San Francisco in the Star Trek Into Darkness trailers, indicating that transporters are definitely not in widespread use on Earth in 2259.

As for TNG-era stuff, I don't recall any specific references. I imagined transporter stations in place of todays train stations, where civillians beamed between different towns and cities. I never thought people had them in their homes.

Oh, but the Trek world has plenty of mental illness. They call it crime and devote entire planets to curing it!

In "Realm of Fear", we get a ballpark figure:

LaForge: "What about the millions of people who transport every day without a problem?"

Click to expand...

"Millions" might sound like a low figure for routine civilian commuting if the Federation population is counted in trillions, as per DS9 casualty estimates for the Dominion War. Perhaps only Starfleet personnel use transporters, and they account exclusively for these millions?

Then again, how many people would need to commute in the future? Apparently, the preferred means of motion in most places on Earth is walking, or horse carriages, with only a select few powered vehicles ever seen, and mainly in those big skyscraper concentrations whose prominence and prevalence on Earth has never really been clarified.

Even the most recent vision in Trek, and thus the one with the lowest level of technology in the somewhat annoying pattern of constant dumbing down of the future, features types of habitation other than conventional cities. Iowa appears to sport giant structures that might be industrial plants but were apparently intended to be arcologies. Conventional transport would not feature prominently in those - but teleporting might not be favored, either.

In DS9 someone (Sisko?) talks about transporter credits when it came to moving all their stuff to a new house. I'd guess that there are places one could go to use transporters, much like going to the transporter pad on a starship, but that the use of these is rationed somehow, at least for normal use.

In DS9 someone (Sisko?) talks about transporter credits when it came to moving all their stuff to a new house.

Click to expand...

Actually, in "Explorers", Sisko speaks of using his personal transporter credits for beaming home from Starfleet Academy every night for dinner. This sort of suggests that the transporter credit is a unit in use in the Academy, but not necessarily anywhere else; Starfleet would have an interest in limiting the movements of its cadets, in essence creating "poverty" and "hardship" for the spoiled brats, but it's difficult to see any other organization deliberately obstructing the use of transporters.

No other mention of transporter credit has been aired in any of the shows.

It would be an issue for other races since tranporter technology seems to be widespread among other statess too. Howwould the federation know that visitors from other races would not abuse their transporters in Federation Space.

In Enterprise's "Affiction", set in 2154, we're told that "Very few people have access to that kind of technology." after Phlox is beamed off-planet.

Click to expand...

Something I noticed about Enterprise (or thought I did) is that in the mid 22nd century, the Vulcans don't obviously have transporter technology. It would be a prideful moment if Humans developed it before they.

I imagined transporter stations in place of todays train stations, where civillians beamed between different towns and cities. I never thought people had them in their homes.

Click to expand...

I could see having a transporter in your home, but it being a luxury item that was on the pricey side. Most people would have to go to their building lobby, or walk down to the one servicing their neighborhood.

I always viewed transporter travel as being akin to today's air travel.

Click to expand...

Maybe a bit more ubiquitous than that. They have private vehicles and large bus like conveyances and subways, but there are the transporters too.

Click to expand...

Actually what I think is that like air travel, transporters are a fairly commonplace thing and many people commute by it every day for long-distance trips, but more people get around through other means for everyday local trips. Just like it is with airplanes today, most people may only travel by transporter only once in a blue moon.

Something I noticed about Enterprise (or thought I did) is that in the mid 22nd century, the Vulcans don't obviously have transporter technology. It would be a prideful moment if Humans developed it before they.

Click to expand...

I guess Vulcans would be the type to invent the technology and then declare it bio-incompatible for the next five centuries.

However, Andorians certainly have indigenous transporters, placing Vulcans at a distinct disadvantage in such a case, and prompting them to man-rate their devices ASAP. Or to develop them if such tech is still missing from their arsenal.

We do see a fair share of Vulcan shuttlecraft in the show. But do we indeed never see Vulcan transporters in action? How did the strike teams in "Awakening" deploy to the Forge, for example?

In a world without poverty or mental illness, I don't think that transporter technology would be too problematic.

Click to expand...

Who says there is no mental illness in the Star Trek universe, it seems like there are many examples of mental illness in Star Trek. Not to mention there is no evidence the Federation is free of psychopaths and people with personality disorders.

The Federation only did away with economic crimes because of their post scarcity economy, there is no evidence they managed to do away with crime of passion, sex crimes or the impulsive crimes of people with personality disorders.

Having potential psychopaths, serial killers and rapists beam into your house whenever they want seems like a scary prospect.